Snap preview
I for one don't like it...
We certainly haven't seen anything to match the outpourings of bile that have followed the wannabe search engine's little page previews, which appear on a number of wordpress.com sites and elsewhere.
The Snap Preview Anywhere technology (also available as a Firefox plugin!) means that if you hover your mouse over a link, you'll see a little popup window showing the site being linked to, attached to the place where your mouse is. The first time, you think, "Cool!" The second time, you think, "Oh, that." The third time, most people think, "How the hell do I turn this thing off?" (Clue: click on the little "Options" text in the popup box and choose "Disable for ALL sites." Add "Damn you!" if you like.)
Technology Guardian
Fusion power
An interesting post from
The New York TimesA few small companies and maverick university laboratories, including this one at U.C.L.A. run by Seth Putterman, a professor of physics, are pursuing quixotic solutions for future energy, trying to tap the power of the Sun — hot nuclear fusion — in devices that fit on a tabletop.
Dr. Putterman’s approach is to use sound waves, called sonofusion or bubble fusion, to expand and collapse tiny bubbles, generating ultrahot temperatures. At temperatures hot enough, atoms can literally fuse and release even more energy than when they split in nuclear fission, now used in nuclear power plants and weapons. Furthermore, fusion is clean in that it does not produce long-lived nuclear waste.
Dr. Putterman has not achieved fusion in his experiments. He and other scientists form a small but devoted cadre interested in turning small-scale desktop fusion into usable systems. Although success is far away, the principles seem sound.
A
lecture by Dr Putterman on his work is on Google Video.
Update: Now that I have seen the full video I am reminded of the man who attended a public lecture by Einstein who was trying to bring the topic to a form understandable by ordinary people. Afterwards Einstein asked how he found the talk and the man said that he understood the words but he had trouble with the sentences.
Hat Tip 3 Quarks Daily
Water water...
I was driving on the M50 motorway last night with the petrol empty light flashing. Not a very comfortable position with the motorway reduced to two lanes with roadworks. Nowhere to go if I ran dry!
When I got a chance at the Palmerstown roundabout I gratefully turned off and into a filling station. The petrol was €1.03 a Liter. And then I saw the special offer: 1 Liter of still water €1.25. And we think petrol is dear!
Help desk
A great video clip on
YouTube. I know the feeling but I still call help desk.
Hat tip
Status-Q Labels: tech
Cartoon
from
Time hat tip 3 Quarks Daily
Smell of sweat
A whole new range of after shave...
Reported in Scientific American:
Rats, moths and butterflies are all known to send chemosignals to secure mates. Similar phenomena have been suggested but not proved in humans: Studies such as Elizabeth McClintock's work in the early 1970s—in which women living together in a dormitory were found to have synchronous menstrual cycles—indicate that a sort of sixth sense exists that allows people's bodies to communicate with one another.
But no evidence was produced, says Claire Wyart, a postdoctoral neuroscience researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, "that a single component of a complex mixture like sweat could induce a change on a hormonal level" without direct contact. Now a new study led by Wyart, published in this week's issue of The Journal of Neuroscience does just that.
The researchers exposed 21 subjects to 30 milligrams of androstadienone and to yeast, which is not in sweat but has a similar olfactory sensation. The results: smelling the androstadienone increased positive mood, total physiological arousal and sexual arousal, which grew with longer exposure.
3Quarks Daily
Your number is up.
Grab a calculator. you probably won’t be able to do this in your head.
Key in the first 3 digits of your phone number (not the area code)
Multiply by 80
Add 1
Multiply by 250
Add the last 4 digits of your phone number.
Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again (just for good measure)
Subtract 250
Divide your answer by 2.
Do you recognize the answer?
If you did the correct math the answer should be your phone number.
The comment, which explains the maths, is the most interesting
Bits & Pieces
I'm angry, angry
On Today's Liveline programme, a young woman called Rosie spoke about her diagnosis of terminal bowel cancer - and the delay she has experienced in getting the proper treatment. She had sent in an e-mail to the programme,
the text is here. The state of the health service is the major issue and will explode on all the politicians at the next election. The day of reckoning is near.
Great. A pair!
Sign in a shoe shop window at the
Liffey Valley Shopping Centre.
Labels: Fun
